Seasonal Cooking in Practice

Why the calendar is the best recipe writer you'll ever follow.

Cooking with the season is the laziest way to cook well. Produce at its peak needs almost nothing done to it -- a ripe summer tomato wants only salt and oil, while a winter squash rewards a long, slow roast.

It is also kinder to your budget. When something is in season locally, it is abundant and cheap, which is exactly when you want to be eating and preserving it.

Let the market lead. Walk in without a fixed plan, buy what looks best, and build the meal backward from there. Some of the best dinners start as a pile of whatever was freshest that morning.